I asked a real estate agent once why Boonville wasn't more popular with
the Napa Valley set. She lowered her voice and said, almost conspiratorially,
"It's the name".
Boonville...it
is a hick name. But then Sagaponack, in The Hamptons ,
where all the swells summer, doesn't exactly slip grandly off the tongue
either. No, its more than the name. Outwardly, there is nothing to do
here. No golf courses, no Wine Train, no Steinbeck connection, nothing
to register on the quaint meter.
Most
travelers slow down to gaze at Boonville and then speed off after having
completed the survey. Some poor folks even park and walk around expectantly,
but their hopes soon fade, and they drive off quickly.
| |
"Many
were dreaming of the wonderful life they would have if only they
could get to Los Angeles." |
The Valley kids
will tell you in an instant what the problem is, "There's nothing to do
here". It's a lament that I'm quite familiar with, having heard it all
through Anderson Valley High from my fellow scholars during the 1960's.
It's true, there
is nothing to do here. But it is also true that
some people can find something, in "nothing". Young children can do it.
They find plenty to do here, and always have. It's when they get a little
older and more worldly that they first discover the problem. This used
to happen at about the age of thirteen. Now I suspect that it happens
even earlier.
On a recent trip
to France I noticed that this was not just a Valley phenomenon. The college
kids I met in French villages were plainly disinterested in the ancient
ruins, art museums and the other charms of life I was reveling in. "There's
nothing to do here," was the gist of what they said. Many were dreaming
of the wonderful life they would have if only they could get to Los Angeles.
Of course, this is exactly as it should be. We go away so that we can
come home again, each place letting us reflect back on what we had at
the other. The Valley kids will surely do this. They will go away, but
they will also come back, if only in their minds, to what they had here.
To walk along Clow Ridge, or down the Navarro River, or into the cathedral
of Hendy Woods, I would argue, is about as profound an adventure as any
you are likely to experience, even if it doesn't seem like much is happening.
I've been chasing the faint charms of this little rural town for some
time now and am still hard pressed to describe them. My brother says they
are just an illusion. Yet, if so, it's still one that enchants. I am reminded
of the painter who is forever trying to capture the look of sunlight falling
on nature. He knows that he will never quite achieve it, but he also knows
that there is a gift in trying.
For instance, the
other day I stopped by the organic farm of Vicki and Mike Brock. Usually,
I just scan the vegetables set out for sale and count out my change from
the little self-serve cash box. But this day, Vicki approached asking,
"Would you like some corn?"
What a question,
I thought. Would I like to walk with her into the corn fields with her
tiny daughter, Julia, trailing behind us in her birthday suit, to pull
ears of young fresh corn from the stalk; corn which I would be eating
at my dinner table within the hour? As calmly as I could, I said, "Yes,
I would like some corn."
So we headed out into the fields in the warm sun of a late summer afternoon,
first stopping to admire the giant pumpkin crop that Mike was growing
for the contests he enters.
Little Julia marched
right up to one behemoth that was approaching 900 pounds and pulled back
the netting that shaded this carefully nurtured specimen. "Daddy's pumpkin",
she announced triumphantly. This pumpkin would later win him a prize,
once he had figured out how to move it.
As I looked around
this idyllic farm with its original 13 star American Flag flying high
atop a pole securely planted amongst the organic crops, I thought of the
imprint this simple ritual of going into the fields on the Valley floor,
surrounded by Redwood forests on the one side and rolling grassy hills
on the other, would make on this little girl, just as it did on me so
many years before her.
If there is an illusion to this place it was present that day, watching
Julia's own senses drinking it all in, as she stumbled over dirt clods
trailing Mommy to the corn patch at golden hour in Boonville.
